– Onyekachi Osondu, ABH Press
World No. 1 Novak Djokovic captured his fifth crown at The Championships, Wimbledon, on Sunday with a thrilling 7-6(5), 1-6, 7-6(4), 4-6, 13-12(3) victory over second seed Roger Federer, the eight-time former titlist from Switzerland, in four hours and 55 minutes on Centre Court. Federer had two championship points at 8-7, 40/15 on serve, in the fifth set that lasted one hour and 50 minutes.
It was the third major championship match that Djokovic saved two match points to beat Federer (also 2010 US Open semi-finals and 2011 US Open semi-finals). It was the first time since the 1948 Wimbledon final — American Robert Falkenburg beat John Bromwich of Australia 7-5 0-6 6-2 3-6 7-5, after being three match points down — that a player had been made points down and won.
The 32-year-old Serbian, who saved one set point at 4-5 in the third set with a service winner en route to extending his FedEx ATP Head2Head record to 26-22 against Federer, has now won 16 Grand Slam singles championship trophies, with only Rafael Nadal (18) and Federer (20) ahead of him in the all-time title leaders list.
Federer had been hoping to become only the second player — after Stan Wawrinka at the 2014 Australian Open — to beat Nadal and Djokovic at the same major championship. The 37-year-old beat Nadal in four sets in the semi-finals.
Djokovic becomes the second singles player (after Nadal) to qualify for the 2019 Nitto ATp Finals, to be held at The O2 in London from 10-17 November.
Source: www.atptour.com